Fall 2010: We (Tricia, Donna, and Pat) are beginning to feel restless as our college is in the throws of devising “measurable standards” and, accordingly, “input-output” measurement schemes in preparation for an upcoming TEAC review that looms one year on the horizon. At times together and at times separately, we sit through many meetings about rubrics, e-portfolios, and espoused best practices, feeling antsy and angst-y, not very different from bored high schoolers texting each other in the back of the classroom. After we leave these faculty brainstorming sessions, we enter into our classrooms where we work with pre-service and in-service teachers and administrators, and we introduce them to critical pedagogy. Our students receive the content and pedagogy with mixed reactions. Some feel quite liberated, perhaps vindicated because this is how they had been teaching all along. Others think criticality is “nice, but impractical,” and some consider it counter-productive to helping students meet proficiency on standardized math and reading exams. Whichever the case, there seems to be a common sentiment among many of our students that critical pedagogy would be great in an ideal world, but in the “real world” of schools, it simply can’t happen because “there just isn’t time” or “it doesn’t align with the standards” or “it would be seen as insubordination by the administration.
